Public Education??

[that damnYOGI....]

I know this maybe dumb that I'd asked this, but why are our educational system failing? I mean I understand that tax payers pay for the public school system, but why are all the closings and budge cuts? Dekalb county parents are formulating their own system through a firm. Kansas City are cutting school districts where they are highly populated by minorities. I am not understanding it. I am reading this in the newspapers and watching it on the news and I am still baffled. How did this happen? Why is it happening?

that's all...

[Maroon and Gray]

it's happening because tax revenues are falling across the country.

[SkegeeFAMU]

My response to this is similar to my response to the thread on Kansas City.  Public education as a whole has become too political, thus there are too many cases where the decisions that have been made haven't been necessarily in the best interests of the teachers or the students.  Because of the political nature of education, there were too many hard decisions that have been deferred, or just simply weren't made that have come home to roost.    

[EB]

My response to this is similar to my response to the thread on Kansas City.  Public education as a whole has become too political, thus there are too many cases where the decisions that have been made haven't been necessarily in the best interests of the teachers or the students.  Because of the political nature of education, there were too many hard decisions that have been deferred, or just simply weren't made that have come home to roost.    

These are good points.  I call it another attack on the commons.  It has shown for years.

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Leading Education Scholar Diane Ravitch: No Child Left Behind Has Left US Schools with Legacy of “Institutionalized Fraud”
As the Obama administration touts No Child Left Behind and the “Race to the Top” competition for school grants, we speak to leading education scholar and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch. She’s long been known as an advocate of No Child Left Behind, charter schools, standardized testing, and using the free market to improve schools. But she’s had a radical change of heart, as chronicled in her latest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Ravitch says, “The evidence says No Child Left Behind was a failure, and charter schools aren’t going to be any better.”

.....

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Part II of the interview

[klg14]

it's happening because tax revenues are falling across the country.

The documentary, "First to Worst" (The Merrow Report), talks about this in CA:

In the 1950's and 60's, California boasted one of the best school systems in the nation. Now it is one of the worst. This program explores the roots of California's current education crisis, tracing it to the anti-tax movement of the 1970's and 80's, with special attention to Proposition 13, the 1978 anti-tax law which is still in effect. It also examines the civil rights lawsuits that aimed to equalize school spending but resulted instead in disastrous funding limits on schools.

http://learningmatters.tv/blog/documentaries/first-to-worst-the-challenge-of-proposition-13/1505/

[Cholly]

^^^A PRIME example of what happens when a society becomes SELFISH and votes for people who prey on that selfishness for their own personal gain.

We can't have an educated society if people don't want to pay for the education, and no; the Teachers Unions are not to blame. That's just another of the right-wing deceptions designed to fool folk into taking their eye of the ball while they, the republiklans, pull a fast one. 

People who think you can get something for nothing are fools.

[y04185]

No one blamed teacher unions for California education woes.

[that damnYOGI....]

But are charter schools the answer? I read in the Macon Telegraph that they wish to shut down the schools in Macon and reopen them as a charter school and start over. I don't understand that logic and whose to say that charter schools are a proven answer to the educational disparity among minorities. I mean aren't you just bringing back the same students, but with different teachers and administrative to perform the same task that was prior to improve the educational standards in our society. What's disheartening to me is the lack of attendance by the students in our communities. I don't understand why or where our kids are for them not to be going to school and no one forcing them to go to school. I believe times has truly changed because I know when I was growing up, if anyone our community saw you walking around during the week in the community, oh, best believe you are getting in trouble when your parents get home or they will take you school one, if you're not sick. What is wrong with our society and our communities?

that's all...

[y04185]

Charter schools are not the answer in this situation.  Charter schools use public money for funding. 

[SkegeeFAMU]

But are charter schools the answer? I read in the Macon Telegraph that they wish to shut down the schools in Macon and reopen them as a charter school and start over. I don't understand that logic and whose to say that charter schools are a proven answer to the educational disparity among minorities. I mean aren't you just bringing back the same students, but with different teachers and administrative to perform the same task that was prior to improve the educational standards in our society. What's disheartening to me is the lack of attendance by the students in our communities. I don't understand why or where our kids are for them not to be going to school and no one forcing them to go to school. I believe times has truly changed because I know when I was growing up, if anyone our community saw you walking around during the week in the community, oh, best believe you are getting in trouble when your parents get home or they will take you school one, if you're not sick. What is wrong with our society and our communities?

that's all...

The problem in Macon is that the demographics and socio-economic status of the families where the majority of the students come from is going to lend itself to under performing schools.  Changing the management structure of the schools, or throwing money at the problem isn't going to change the performance of the schools.

[Cholly]

^^^A VERY large percentage of the problem.

Poor people don't have the skill sets, and consequently can't TEACH those skills to their children to be successful.

We all dance around the issue of education today. (When I say we, I mean we Americans.) We want to blame the teachers but NOT blame ourselves for how we actually raise our children. We don't accept the responsibility for hiring and using the one-eyed monster as a baby sitter from the age of one. We have two parent incomes where we have two parents and forget that in MOST of human history, someone was there full-time to teach our children the skills needed to survive in this world.


We quickly blame others for OUR shortcommings and failings.

Charter schools here in Florida are getting the SAME results on the standardized tests as the rest of the public schools.... but guess what? The HIGHEST performing schools are the ones that spend the most money per pupil.... mostly private schools.

What does THAT say about the talking point that "you can't buy your way to a good education?"

[Capler]

As mentioned, the system has become too political. What pains me the most is that Republicans are correct when they say big government messes up things. Government could work if it was not so darn tainted. I know we need healthcare reform, but I'm also afraid of what the government will come up with. Crap is too political.      

[Cholly]

Not political, but CORRUPTED by corporate donations.

Big business OWNS the political process, and that sir, is the root of all the things you hate/fear about big government.